


the future breaks against us

by dizzy



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: M/M, Post-Book 2: Wayward Son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27082480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: Simon and Baz try to work some things out, and vulnerability happens (whether they mean for it to or not).
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 10
Kudos: 132





	the future breaks against us

**Author's Note:**

> This is pure post-Wayward Son self indulgence I wrote for Sarah and also myself, where canon is cherry picked at my leisure.

SIMON

The air in the flat seems stale. 

We all just stand in the lounge for a minute. The drive from Heathrow to here had been noisy, full of Shep asking questions and Penny doing her favorite thing - spouting off information - and Agatha quietly speaking to her parents on her mobile and Baz... well, actually, Baz wasn't saying a damned thing. 

Not that I can blame him for that. I didn't say that much either, just answered Penny when she directed things at me. 

Everyone's coming home with us. It's late, the red eye the only flight we could get out, and we're all exhausted. Agatha's going to sleep in Penny's room - Penny seems far more excited than Agatha about that. Shep's taking the sofa. 

Baz doesn't actually need to stay but I think none of us realize that until we're dropping our bags, or at least what we've managed to recollect of our bags, in a pile by the door. He has to step aside and then his hand brushes against the doorknob. 

I can see him start to open his mouth. 

He's going to say he'll go. I watch his fingers curl around the polished knob. He's going to leave. Go back to his own flat. Alone. 

Maybe not alone. Maybe his aunt's home. But alone, really, either way. He won't be with me. 

Something strange and new crawls up my throat. "Stay," I say, inappropriately loudly. But I'm all the way across the room and otherwise he might have pretended not to hear me. I couldn't let him do that. I can't let him walk away. 

I was right. Everyone looks at us. 

The annoyance that passes over Baz's face is brief and almost comfortingly familiar. Then the word seems to process to him and doubt replaces the annoyance. "I should go," he says. 

I shake my head. My eyes don't leave his. I'm sleep-deprived. I have impulse issues. I'm still thinking about what he said on the beach. I still think I should break up with him. I don't want him to leave. "Stay," I say again. 

"Yeah," Shep says, either brilliant and trying to break the tension unobtrusively or just actually daft. "We'll have a good old fashioned slumber party!"

Either way, it does an alright job. Penny jumps in to agree that we can all order pizza (none of us have eaten) and Agatha sighs like she really just wants to go to bed and Baz.. 

Baz takes his hand off the doorknob. 

BAZ

I don't partake in the pizza. I left the airport briefly while the others waited on the baggage claim. Two rats won't hold me for long but I wasn't going to risk them leaving without me. 

Simon leaving without me. 

I want to think he wouldn't but I don't know what to trust right now. I'm afraid if I blink he may just disappear. I thought for sure he was going to let me walk out earlier, but he told me to stay and now he won't even meet my eyes. 

Simon Snow is the most infuriating person I've ever met. A genuine part of me wonders what it is about him that made me fall so irrevocably hard for him? Yet in all my angst and pining (pining! for someone that in theory is already mine) I still can't regret a single thing I feel or a single turn my life has taken to lead me right here. 

Both of us always wondered if it would come down to a fight between the two of us in the end. Maybe it will, but this fight won't be against each other; it'll be me fighting for him, for us. Me not letting him go while he tries to push me away. 

I don't know if I'll win it, and that's the terrifying part. I'm ill prepared for a fight that neither magic nor the advantages of vampirism help me with at all. 

Agatha says she's going to sleep before anyone else. 

Penny sits still by Simon's side, sneaking furrowed looks at me. I'm not sure if she's being protective of him or if she's just curious. 

He has to realize the only place left for me to sleep is in his bed, unless he plans on offering that spot to Shep. Again a ridiculous idea on the surface but Simon's sometimes absurd like that. 

Shep falls asleep sitting up. 

I remain sat at the corner of the couch, back ramrod straight. I can't even use my phone to distract myself. 

I hear Simon's heart start to race before he says, "We should turn in too." 

I have to look at him to make sure he's talking about me. 

But he is. 

SIMON

I know Penny is worried about me. Maybe she's worried about what will happen as soon as Baz and I are behind closed doors. 

She probably thinks I'm going to break up with him. 

I'm not. 

I don't think so, anyway. 

I don't want to. I've never wanted to. 

"Alright," Baz says, standing. 

He looks pale and I can practically feel the chill of his skin from half a room away. It's the same sort of chill in the room that I remember from mornings at Watford when I'd have left the window open. 

Now I know it probably means he needs to eat more. He looked so unhealthy next to all of the vampires in Las Vegas. I thought it was just how he was. Now I know he's underfed. 

I bet Penny can find somewhere in London to get actual blood. She likes a challenge like that, and she also likes taking care of people she loves. She does love Baz. America proved that, if I hadn't already known it. Baz is her friend now. 

Will she still talk to him if - when - he and I break up? 

I hope so. Baz needs people to care for him. Maybe he'll find someone that can do for him all the things I can't. Like kiss him. Have sex with him. Have an actual conversation with him without hurting him. 

I shut my bedroom door behind us. 

"I can sleep on the floor," he says, quietly. 

He sounds so defeated. It makes me want to cry. 

"No," I say. I don't know I'm going to say it until I already have. My brain just works like that sometimes. "Sleep on the bed." 

"With you?" He asks. 

I hate that he has to ask. 

"With me," I say. 

"I don't have anything to sleep in." 

"Okay?" I shrug. "We're in my room. You can borrow something of mine." 

Even that looks like it hurts him. I don't even know what I said wrong there. Or maybe I didn't say anything wrong. Maybe it's just an association - like a Pavlov thing. Maybe I've just ruined even innocuous things for him. 

Innocuous is a very Baz word. Or a Penny word. They're both smarter than me. They're both brilliant and beautiful and I'd give my life for them. 

I feel light headed and sit on the edge of my bed. 

"Simon," he says quietly, then sits beside me. He leaves enough space between us that our hands don't touch. "Don't do it." 

My heart hammers immediately. "Don't do what?" I ask, stupidly. 

"Don't end it." 

Oh. Oh no. He sounds like he's... 

Oh no. 

BAZ

Oh for fuck's sake, I am actually crying. 

How much more pathetic can a vampire get? 

I try to be subtle about it but he's gaping at me already. 

"Baz," he says, almost urgently. 

"Don't." I can't stop myself. "Please don't." 

"Okay," he says. I have no idea if he really means it or if he just wants to stop me crying. If it's the latter, then I do sympathize; I also quite want me to stop crying. 

"You were going to." 

"I don't know if I was," he says, and I actually do believe that. "I don't know anything. I feel so confused." 

"What can I help clear up for you?" I ask, then give up all pretense and wipe my tears away with a quick swipe of the backs of my fingers. 

"I don't even know! That's the stupid part."

"You," I inform him, "Are the stupid part." 

He laughs and shoves me. He might be crying just a bit too but I return the kindness and do not bring attention to it. 

It feels nice to be shoved around by Simon Snow. It always did, really; it meant I had his attention. 

"I hate you," he says, then: "I don't hate you." 

"I don't hate you very much," I say, quietly. 

There's silence then. We never know how to get much further than this. 

"You're not happy with me," he finally says. "You can't be." 

"I'm not happy without you," I say. "And I wouldn't be. But with you I have potential to be happy." 

"Potential," he repeats. 

My voice drops down to almost a whisper. "Potential makes me happy." 

He drops his head into his hands and groans. 

"We need rest," I say. "Get me something to wear." 

He turns his head, cheek still pressed into his fingers, and smiles at me. "Bossy."

Crowley, I love this boy. 

SIMON

I get him some damn clothes, while secretly being relieved that he gave me an out. I've already changed - did so a few minutes after we arrived, eager to get out of the funky stuff I'd been wearing before. 

I told him I wasn't going to break up with him. Why does it feel like I'm cheating by saying that? He doesn't want to break up. I don't actually want to break up. Why does it still feel like there's some imaginary rule that says we have to and I'm doing something wrong by breaking it? By not breaking us. 

I pull a t-shirt and a pair of shorts out. I don't know if he wants to wear his own underwear. I don't even know what kind of underwear he wears, at least not since I stopped snooping in his things in year five. (By which I mean not since we both learned privacy spells and could keep each other from snooping.) 

"I really can sleep on the floor," he says. "I don't want you to feel... uncomfortable." 

I flush with guilt over that. I've made him so afraid of being near me. I understand why he feels that way, in the sense that he's trying to respect my boundaries. I just don't understand what my boundaries are or why they fall in the places they do. 

I don't know why I become terrified of things that might be more physically intimate. I don't know how to not be. 

I turn and look at Baz. At a glance he looks buttoned up and elegant even after twelve hours from airport to airport and another two hours of transport and waiting while we ate. But I look more closely and see the exhaustion in his face, the emotional toll. It makes my heart ache a bit. We've all been through so much and now I'm putting him through this? Who the fuck am I to do that? 

Suddenly I'm angry at myself. Maybe that's not healthy either, but anger has always been a good motivator to me. 

"If I ask you to do something weird, will you?" I ask Baz. 

He looks conflicted, which - fair enough. But then he nods. 

"Can you take your clothes off?" 

"Do you want me to... change clothes?" He draws out the words. 

"No, I want you to take your clothes off," I say. "And be..." 

"Disrobed." 

"Naked." 

He stands. "Simon, are you sure?"

It's still weird when he doesn't call me Snow. 

"I'm sure," I say. Then I hand him the sleep clothes I'd pulled out. "If I change my mind you can just put those on and I won't be angry or anything. I promise. This is... I'm asking. I know you're not... pushing. Just trust me?" 

Apparently those are the magic (ha) words, because he starts to unbutton his shirt. 

BAZ

I have no idea why Simon Snow wants me to get naked in front of him. I'm certainly not down for anything naughty tonight, and I would sprout my own wings and tail out of shock if he actually were. 

"Are you just going to watch?" I ask. 

"Yeah," he says. "Unless you don't want me to." 

I shrug. "Be my guest." 

"Actually," he says, "You're mine." 

I roll my eyes. Underneath it I'm terrified. But my shirt drops to the floor and he isn't panicking. He still smells the same. Heart still sounds the same. 

I start to undo my jeans - black and practically sculpted to my body. It's a struggle to remain graceful while they come off. I'm glad my shoes are already by the front door. I manage to step out of them without toppling over or, I think, stumbling around too much. 

I stand, wearing just my pants. I've been wearing these through a day of recycled plane air and airport grime. I hope this isn't a prelude to anything sexual. I realize Simon's the one that had the freak out, but I've never actually had sex either, and this isn't exactly the scenario of my dreams. 

He doesn't look turned on, though. He doesn't smell turned on. (I do know what that smells like, from the first few weeks of dating when we actually did things like kiss as lovers do.) He just looks... intense. 

"Pants too," he says. 

I could say no if I wanted. But strangely, this doesn't bother me. Baring myself to Snow like this feels almost appropriate for the strangeness of the night and our lives. 

I step out of my pants. I think both of us hold our breaths. I don't look down, don't try to categorize my body's adequateness through the eyes of someone unaccustomed to seeing it. 

"Okay, now here's the weird part," Snow says, after he's apparently looked his fill. 

"That wasn't the weird part?" I actually do feel a bit alarmed now. 

He shakes his head. "Now I want to hug you." 

SIMON

Well, I did tell him it was weird. 

I didn't know that was what I wanted until he was naked. Until he was letting me take in his whole body - pale skin and pale nipples and black pubic hair that's a bit less groomed than I imagined it would be and soft cock and slender thighs and awkwardly large feet. 

I like how he looks. That's not a revelation. I sorted that out within a few minutes of our first kiss, the whole finding him attractive thing. 

Baz holds his arms out to me. My heart does race then, a roller-coaster feeling. I assume, anyway. I've never been on a roller coaster. The homes didn't exactly do summer trips to Thorpe Park. 

Even my brain is rambling. It's like I'm afraid to actually concentrate on what it feels like to step into Baz's hold. I'm excited, I'm exhilarated, it's just a goddamn hug. 

His arms close around me. He really is cool to the touch. 

I can warm him up. 

Maybe that thought is what jolts me into action, wrapping him up in my arms. I can feel his breath catch. Was he not expecting me to hug back? Who knows, maybe not. But I do. 

This is what I wanted. This is what I'm terrified of, and this is what I am desperate to tell myself I can have. 

I bury my face in his neck. I want to cry, but I don't. He clutches me and whispers my name against the side of my head. One of his hands, long fingers, proper cold at the fingertips, pressing into my skin. I want to bleed heat into him. I want him to bleed love into me. I want him to hold me so tight I can't forget or run away. 

He does. Like he can hear my thoughts, he does. 

BAZ

Maybe I never made it out of Vegas and this is the bone that heaven chooses to toss to a lonely sinner not given much choice in the matter of his demonic nature. A pleasure-punishment that will just loop endlessly, being allowed to hold a boy that has the power to break me so but never knowing if more will come than this. 

I shove that thought away. He said he won't break up with me. He wanted to look at me. He wants to hold me, and be held. 

"Snow," I whisper, and kiss the softly buzzed hair just atop his ear. The curls above tickle my nose and I feel him relax into me. 

He doesn't feel like a man that's going anywhere. 

I rub my hand up and down his back. "Simon," I whisper this time. 

"I'm afraid," he whispers back. 

"I know," I say. "It's alright. It'll be alright. We'll sort it out together." 

I have no idea what it is or what we'll sort out or if we can but I'd promise the moon if it meant he stayed. 

"Will we?" He asks. 

He sounds searching. 

The fucking moon. Even if I have to invent the spell to pluck it right down from the sky. 

"We will." I squeeze tighter. I'd almost be afraid I was hurting him except he manages to return it with every bit of strength. 

I don't know how long we stand there. I'm almost falling asleep to the background sounds of Agatha and Penny talking a room away, to Shep snoring, to the city outside, but mostly to the familiar pulse of Simon's heartbeat. 

Finally, disappointingly, he does pull away. He looks at me and presses his hand to my cheek and I know he's going to kiss me but I still feel like I've just crashed into a wave when his mouth touches mine. It's nothing like our America kisses (every one I've counted and cataloged and tucked away to obsess over). It's chaste, almost, which is strange considering how very nude I am. But our mouths don't part and while it lingers it does not deepen. 

"Don't give up on me," he says. 

I tip my forehead down to touch his. "Never," I say back, then place a kiss of my own right on his forehead. 

SIMON

I don't even really know what happened, but I do know that I feel better now. 

I watch while Baz puts on my t-shirt and shorts. My clothes look so out of place and ridiculous on him but I feel a frisson of warmth at the sight. What does it mean that I just saw my boyfriend's cock for the first time and it didn't turn me on, but the sight of him in my clothes does? 

Maybe just that whatever we did first wasn't sexual. It was... something else. Some weird fucked up Snow-Pitch ritual of benediction that we make up our own rules for. Whatever it was, I feel forgiven. I feel renewed. Maybe I just feel delirious with sleep deprivation. 

"Are you sure-" He asks as he's pulling back the duvet to get into bed with me. 

I don't even let him finish it. I throw a pillow at him. He catches it easily. "I'm sure. Merlin, stop asking. I'll let you know when it's not okay." 

He bonks me on the head with a pillow. 

I like him in my shirt. I like him in my bed. He's been here before but months ago. I don't feel like I was the same person. I don't know who I was then. I don't know who I am now. I haven't felt like I've known anything since I stopped being the Mage's Heir. Simon Snow? Normal? Functional human being? Not depending on repression and distancing to cope with emotions he doesn't understand? Sounds fake. 

But maybe it won't be fake forever. 

I turn the light off. Baz and I are both lying on our backs. I can hear him breathing, which means he must want me to hear him breathing. 

I would love to cuddle up to him right now but I feel those boundaries have well and truly been pushed for one night. Instead, I reach under the duvet and find his fingers and start to warm them with my own. 

"Goodnight, Snow," he says, voice as soft as the night. 

I squeeze his hand. I'm going to make him stay for breakfast, too. "Goodnight, Baz." 

BAZ

I sleep well. I don't know why, but I sleep well. 

No nightmares. No restless tossing and turning. I do wake up a time or two, well-honed senses alerting me to the scream of a fox a few streets away, the sound of someone else in the flat shuffling to the loo once. 

But I sleep better than I have any night on our godforsaken trip or even before that. 

I think Simon does, too. I always used to wake at night to Simon's nightmares, and he had a lot of them. But this morning Simon's chest rises and falls in a steady pattern. 

We aren't holding hands anymore, but he's turned toward me. I love staring at his face without so much distance between my features and his. I want to reach out and touch him, to rub a finger over that ginger eyebrow, to touch the scruff of his morning stubble. It's almost invisible against his skin usually, but not from this vantage point. 

I'd like to kiss there too. I'd like to feel it against my lips. Like to kiss him on the mouth, kiss him - everywhere. 

His eyes flutter open. I wait for the sharp withdrawal, but it doesn't come. 

He smiles at me. 

SIMON

"I like waking up with you." I say it before I think, which is how things usually work for me. 

It's worth it for the shock of happiness on his face. I don't think I used to know what that looked like. Maybe I saw it but I didn't recognize it. Baz and I, we've never been people that read each other naturally. It takes work and maybe that's why this means so much. 

We're both willing to work for it. 

"I'm glad," Baz says. 

Of course his voice is perfectly smooth in the morning. Mine sounds like someone put my voice box in a blender. I clear my throat just to try and make it a little better, giving in to some urge to be suave and impress Baz. 

Then I don't know what to say because I'm thinking about it and my brain never works right when I try to think too hard. (Yeah, I can just hear the joke he'd be making here.) 

I act instead, putting my hand right on the center of his chest. "You know what we should do?" 

He looks at my hand like it's mildly terrifying. It's cute, though. He's cute. 

"What?" He asks. 

"Cuddle." 

He looks even more baffled. "What?" 

"You know, like..." I start to say _in the truck_ but then I don't. It's like talking about it might break the nice memory it is. "Like couples do." 

That must not be a bad thing to say, because a spot of color actually shows up on his cheeks. I like that I can get whatever blood is in his body moving like that. "Couples," he says, repeating the word like it tastes good in his mouth.

"Be nice to get to touch you without having to wrestle you first." 

He chokes out a laugh. "You can touch me any time you want, for whatever reason you want, Snow." 

That's - that's almost too much. Not on Baz's end, but just where my mind goes. 

I deal with it by dropping my forehead to his shoulder and kicking my leg out over his thighs. 

BAZ

We're both wearing shorts. I feel branded by Simon's warmth even just just from the few points of contact there are. 

I’m so thrown that it takes me a moment to even hold him back, though once I do I wrap my arms around him tightly like I’m afraid he’ll get away. We hugged the night before and I’m not sure my mind entirely accepted it as more than a one-off thing, though. 

“I like this,” I say, because I need to offer him something. I need him to know how I feel. 

“Me too.” He lifts his head up and looks at me. His chin hurts a bit where it’s digging into my sternum. 

Then the pressure is gone from that spot and his lips are on mine. It’s a soft kiss - nothing overtly sexual about it, but it lingers longer than a peck. 

(I say these things as though I have any sort of vast knowledge of kissing or the types of them.) 

“Do it again,” I whisper. 

I’m afraid it’s too much but Simon’s face lights up in a massive grin. He glows when he smiles like that. He kisses me a second time and it’s warmer, firmer. His lips open against mine and the flavour of his mouth is sour and musty but I don’t care. 

I hold him tighter and kiss back more. We’re both breathing harder when he pulls away. “Hey,” he says, voice low. “I saw your todger last night.” 

“Don’t - don’t call it that.” My voice is mildly pained and I hope it sounds more like annoyance than the reality of what it is, my utter lack of disbelief that this is happening. 

“Your cock,” he says, and his mouth makes sounds like he’s treasuring the word as it comes out. “I saw your cock, and I liked it.”

He’s going to be the death of me. 

SIMON

I’m just teasing him. Taking the piss out of Baz has always been one of my favourite things. 

I think maybe kissing him is one of my favorite things, too. 

I lean back in. Just a bit more. I’m hungry - like proper hungry for some breakfast, and I can hear people moving around outside. But right now not even food makes me entirely want to leave the bed. 

(Be pretty great if someone could bring breakfast to me here, though…) 

As if my stomach summoned her, Penny knocks on the door. I know it’s Penny’s knock because I’ve heard it so many times in the past year. 

“Simon? We were thinking of doing a breakfast fry up-” 

“Yes,” I immediately say. “We’ll be out in just a minute.” 

Baz makes the tiniest and - do I ever dare to say it? - cutest sound protesting. 

I give him another kiss just for that. 

But just one. A man has needs. “Come on,” I say. “Food.” 

He sighs so I leave him there. I’m just wearing shorts and a shirt and I don’t want to completely change in front of him so I pull joggers on over the shorts. The shirt can stay. I’m not trying to impress anyone out there. The only person I do want to impress is in my bed right now. 

“Fine,” he says, and sits up. “Should I change?” 

I bite my lip. “No.” 

He looks down at himself, then back up at me. “I look ridiculous.” 

“You look good.” My voice is too sincere to be played for laughs. I really mean it, and we both know it. 

The compliment must work because he leaves the shirt on, at least. 

BAZ

I make a brief escape while the others eat, perusing outside for something to sate my own hunger. 

Lamb extolled the virtues of human blood, and while he didn’t tempt me to grab the nearest townsfolk for a taste he did teach me that things are possible I didn’t think were before. 

I half drain a healthy looking dog then stop, staring warily at it. I don’t know if I expect it to sprout fangs or it’s eyes to glow red but it just whines low at me like it doesn’t understand what’s going on.

I get to my feet and it tries to follow me until I shoo it off. 

I do the same to a couple of cats - dogs might be easier to catch but cats help satiate the hunting instincts inside of me. They run and they hide and it feels like a victory to catch them. 

I don’t kill either one, though it’s a near thing with the first one. 

I’m proud of myself when I make it back to Simon’s flat. Despite the fact that life has been a torrential downpour of disaster in the recent weeks, this day has a start that feels - dare I say - good? 

They’re finished with breakfast, which also suits me just as well. Simon makes space for me on the sofa, and doesn’t seem to care that it’s a tight fit. There’s nowhere for my arm to go so I try to hug it over my chest until Simon laughs and tugs it up over his shoulder. 

I’m proud of that, too. 

SIMON

Penny keeps giving me strange looks, and I know it’s because she’s not used to seeing me and Baz like this. 

They’re not bad looks but I still wish she wouldn’t. I just smile big at her eventually and she stops, or at least pretends to stop. She still keeps looking out of the corner of her eyes at us. 

Baz looks good. I can tell he must have fed nicely because his skin tone looks almost healthy. I want him to eat more. I’m gonna keep telling him that he needs to. I’ll make him feed five times a day if it means he looks as healthy as all those vampires in Los Angeles. 

He deserves that. He deserves a lot of things. He deserves a boyfriend who isn’t so far up his own arse he can’t do anything but think of his own issues. 

I can probably do that… I reckon at least a quarter of a time, for a start. If he and I are going to make a real go of it, I’ll have to. 

I lean more firmly into him. Sort of want to crawl right on his lap. Sort of think he’d let me. Why am I only just realizing how Baz lets me do pretty much anything I want and he always just stays right here with me? 

Not like he doesn’t give me trouble when I need trouble given to me. He’ll fight and fuss at me. He’ll tell me when I’m being an idiot. He’ll go right along with me when I ignore him, because I am an idiot. 

I put my hand on his leg, because I want to. I don’t even know what everyone is talking about. I’ve never been able to focus on more than one thing at a time and right now the thing filling up all of my senses is him. 

BAZ

I feel mildly uncomfortable witnessing the therapy session that is conversational remembrances of our trip happening all around me. 

I understand there’s a lot to unpack, but must they all do it so… openly? I thought repression was something we all had in common. I guess this just means that I’m the best at it, as I tend to be at most things when compared to Simon and his lot. 

(His lot. As though I don’t know fully well they’re my lot now, too.) 

So I listen and don’t participate. Simon isn’t either, which strikes me as strange until I see that he has a slightly unfocused look on his face. 

I wonder what he’s thinking about. 

I wonder if he’s thinking about me. 

I hope he is. 

Crowley knows I’m consumed with him. He even smells delicious - that spicy note he always takes on when he’s just woken up, the lingering traces of sleep sweat from a body overheated trapped underneath blankets. 

He has his hand on my legs and I want them all to just disappear. I want to steal Simon away so he can kiss me more or talk to me more or look at me more or whatever he wants to do. 

I curl my fingers around his shoulder, squeezing gently. His eyes flicker to me like he’s not sure what that means, so I smile - just a bit. Just enough. 

He shifts his weight more solidly against me. 

No one says anything. No one even really seems to notice. 

I like that. This is what I want - this whole room, the whole world, to not doubt for a second that we are together. 

SIMON

Agatha goes back home. 

Shep and Penny are staying, of course. Penny’s offered him up our couch - without even asking me, though maybe that’s the point. She wants to keep me off of it. 

“We need more food,” I remind them. “We’ve been gone for weeks.” 

I’m not sure how it turns into Shep and Penny going to do the shop. Shep says something about wanting to see what an English grocery store looks like and Penny - well, Penny’s always liked showing off about things she’s an expert in, I guess. Even if those things are weird. 

So they’re gone and it’s just me and Baz and Baz starts to look uncomfortable again. I don’t like that. I don’t want to let that look stay. I’m doing good today with the demons in my own mind, and if I can fight them off I can sure as hell take on whatever Baz has going on. 

I do it the best way I can think of. 

BAZ

Almost as soon as the door closes, Simon is kissing me. 

“Um,” I say. 

I’m apparently at my least eloquent when being kissed by Simon Snow. 

(No one is surprised.) 

“Sorry,” Simon says, ducking back. His cheeks are a rosy red. “Just wanted to do that.” 

“You can do that whenever you want,” I say. I hope he knows how true it is. 

“Don’t say that,” Simon says, though his face doesn’t match his words. 

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t say that either.” Simon laughs. “I mean, it’s just weird. I feel like it’s one of the laws of the universe. You’re not supposed to apologize to me.” 

“Snow, I’ll apologize to you as and when I feel it’s necessary.” I put a threatening edge to my voice. 

He laughs. “That’s more like it.” 

I put my hands on his waist. I feel impossible… elevated, write night. Like someone’s turned a tap and I’m filled with helium. 

I think maybe this is how Simon feels too. I think this is what’s putting that expression on his face. 

I kiss him this time, soft and almost chaste. “You drive me insane, Snow.” 

“Simon.” 

_“Simon.”_

Then we’re kissing again, more and harder. It’s like this morning. I could fall into this. I could live in this. 

But when he pulls away I don’t try to chase him back. 

“I’m still scared,” he says. 

“That’s alright.” I rub a hand gently down his back. It’s something my mum used to do to soothe me to sleep at night. Maybe all mums do that, I don’t know. 

But Simon didn’t really have a mum, so he wouldn’t know either, I suppose. 

“I’m not scared of you.” 

“Good.” 

“I don’t want to be.” 

“You shouldn’t be.” 

“I wish my brain listened when I tell it what it should and shouldn’t do.” 

I laugh and kiss his forehead. “Nothing about you is controllable, Snow. Simon.” 

“Basilton.” 

“That sounds…” 

“Weird?”

“Sexy,” I say. 

He shivers. I feel it. 

“Cold?” I tease him. 

“Sod off.” He pushes me back just a bit, but not too hard. “Do you need to go see your aunt?” 

“Probably,” I say. I haven’t really thought much of it. “I suppose.” 

“Okay.” He chews on his bottom lip. “Come back tonight?” 

My heart resides solidly in his hands. “Alright,” I say easily. 

“Bring some clothes,” he says. “For a few days.” 

“I’ll pack a bag,” I agree. I can always leave with it if it becomes too much for him. 

“Good.” He lets go of me then, finally. “Come on, you didn’t eat earlier. Let’s find you something.”

SIMON

I used to be obsessed with watching him eat because I wanted to see his fangs, but right now I really do just want to feed him. Maybe I’m having some kind of delayed trauma response (that’s a Penny phrase) to how close we came to dying, but it feels really important to me that Baz is full and happy and safe. 

And here, apparently. I want him here. It’s like I’m afraid to let him out of my sight because I don’t know if things are going to go back to feeling so scary and weird and dark in my head if we’re apart for more than a few minutes. Breakfast wasn't so bad because everyone else was around, but I just… I don’t know. Feelings are such a sodding scam, aren’t they? You can’t really trust them not to go weird on you. They’re like slippery little snakes. 

I like the one I’ve got in my hands right now and I don’t want it to wriggle away. I don’t want Baz to wriggle away. If I could be sitting on his lap keeping him from leaving me at all I would. 

Maybe that’s what should be scary, but it isn’t. It feels like it did back in the beginning but maybe even better than that, because even back then Baz was afraid to say the kinds of things to me like he said last night. 

I reckon we haven’t been talking nearly enough. I also reckon that if we’d tried to talk before this trip, I wouldn’t have really listened. I’m stubborn sometimes. I convince myself of the way things should go and it’s hard for me to change tracks on it. 

But, as Baz would tell you, I’m also an idiot sometimes.


End file.
